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1.3.3-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Fantine Book 3 Ch.3 Four for Four IT IS STILL TUESDAY SOMEWHERE NOT TECHNICALLY TOO LATE. In Which A Blonde Is Described In Hilarious Detail And we all know it won’t be the last time. Standing out among the obvious parallels with He-Who-Is-Seriously-Threatening -To-Usurp-My-Discussions-On -These -Chapters is the mention of Fantine as an object for debate by the ‘priests of the beautiful’ (FMA)— Fantine is only an object, rather than a priest herself. Adding that to the virginity references, the goddess metaphors, everything— I am having a REALLY HARD TIME keeping this post from going into a Les Mis Blondes discussion. Some people were wondering yesterday how Fantine got to her age in her circumstances still so naive and/or inexperienced (and all I can suggest there is that sometimes it happens? especially if everyone around her decided not to talk to her about Things, as seems to be the case) I find it harder to believe that she never knew she was attractive; it’s my experience that an even vaguely attractive woman-type person is going to hear about that pretty much EVERY FRIGGING DAY. Was she horribly neglected or something and can’t take it on board? Fantine, what is with you and your animated laughing teeth? Why don’t you know you’re seen as hot? WHO IS TELLING YOU WRONG THINGS, the narrative voice wants a word with them. Again, the descriptions seem to go out of their way to take the blame for any ‘fall’ here off Fantine. Her love is innocent, so she is innocent (and both FMA and Denny talk about love, not sex, being a fault, and Fantine’s innocence floating her above that fault), even described as virginal. I like the suggestion there that innocence comes with intent rather than action, though of course I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea that a woman enjoying no-strings sexuality is acting impure. Deep breaths for me though, deep breaths, it was the 1800s, Hugo was trying. However innocent she is, though, her taste in guys remains awful. No matter how fantastic their pants. Next chapter: Tholomyes Is Even Less Appealing! Commentary Laissezferre It would of interest to note that Julie Rose translates it as “Illlicit love is a sin; so be it.” which gives off a very different message than “love is a fault”. The word “love” alone encompasses a lot — maternal, romantic, etc. — but JR pinpoints precisely what kind of love it is, and does more by proclaiming it unlawful from the get go. Laughing at ballooning nankeen trousers, because those just look ridiculous! The copper stirrups do not help the image at all. IDK why he’s likened to a certain fashionable ami when his fashion sense is way off. Sarah1281 Tholomyes seems like the kind of guy who would try to make his girlfriend think that she wasn’t pretty so she’d get insecure about losing him and stay with him/sleep with him. I mean, he is REALLY no prize himself and cynical enough to be well-aware of it. At some point he has to ask himself why a pretty girl who doesn’t appear to be after his money would still be with him. He probably concludes she is an idiot but maybe also that she needs some help on that front. Gascon-en-exile I’m afraid I don’t have much time at the moment, so this will have to be brief. I’ll get to the next chapter when I have more time. Comparisons to Enjolras are indeed blatant - Fantine is even likened to a statue at one point - but here I’m a bit more interested in how her descriptions subvert her obvious role as the narrative’s fallen woman. While her end fits the model for that archetype extremely well (forced into increasing degradation, some of it sexual, before dying of an unidentified illness). However, Fantine’s fall occurs because of circumstances beyond her control, and even though we later learn she has a child out of wedlock, it’s difficult to condemn her for it when here “''Fantine était l’innocence surnageant sur la faute''.” Her physical descriptions also borrow from angel in the house identifiers, especially because it notes how naturalized and unconscious is her beauty. As unrealistic as it is that a girl of unknown (or no) parentage would naturally possess all the physical and social graces of an ideal young woman, this is so common in (positive) representations of womanhood at the time that it barely warrants commenting upon except as a general cultural trend. How it applies to Enjolras’s unconscious perfection, on the other hand…. I talked about the impending Anglophilia brought about by Byron in the last chapter, and here Hugo mentions it explicitly. Looking forward to Prouvaire (and by implication Bahorel)? We also start to see the imbalance of the power dynamics in these two groups: Favourite leads the women (and Blancheville exists only to carry her shawl), whereas we know from last time that Tholomyès leads the men - even from the back as here. I’ll have to spend more time with this later. If anyone was wondering about the joke in Favourite’s note at the beginning of the chapter, in the original it’s “''C’est un bonne heure de sortir de bonheur'',” (“It’s a good hour to go out for pleasure/happiness.”) a homophone pun as “''bonne heure''" and "bonheur" sound alike. As an English friend of mine once remarked, the word for happiness also sounds much like "boner," but I smacked him and told him that that was an awful pun and not indicative of the priorities of the French in the least. Hmph. Pilferingapples (reply to Gascon-en-exile) The constant contrast between the reality and believability of Hugo’s characters and the masses and masses of symbolism he saddles them with is going to give me some kind of mental injury. Fantine’s naivety regarding romance I find rather believable, if she’s found herself closed out of female friend groups as she clearly is here; but her unawareness of her beauty, symbolic as that may be, I can only see as REALLY troublingly false self-image. Which might be why she’s so bad at assessing other people (she is really really bad at it; does she ever make a corrrect call, poor dear?). Which…puts the symbolism back into the real world. AUHG HUGO. And you know I’m ALWAYS looking forward to Bahorel. Hugo, I have no idea…